March 2023 5V0-21.19 Exam Dumps

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As 17 percent of customers see Virtzilla's short term strategic significance shrinking

Broadcom has signalled its intention to take on hyperscale datacenter operators once its acquisition of VMware concludes.…

News of the plan emerged in a newsletter Broadcom sent to VMware staff and which – as it comments on the future of the two listed entities – was disclosed by both VMware and Broadcom as a regulatory filing.

The document is mostly corporate blurb that explains Broadcom is committed to innovation, is doing all the work needed to understand VMware so the $61 billion acquisition doesn't strike trouble, and wants to build "an inclusive and welcoming culture."

Readers were also offered some optimistic words about the "significant progress" on the regulatory filings Broadcom has made with authorities around the world that have reviewed the acquisition, plus an assessment that "We have an excellent team focussed on these efforts and continue to expect the transaction will close in Broadcom's fiscal year 2023."

The newsletter also outlines a "common goal" for VMware and Broadcom: "Together, we will provide customers greater choice and the opportunity to accelerate innovation by addressing their most complex technology challenges in this multi-cloud era."

The document concludes with the following bold declaration:

Just how the two will do that was not explained.

Presently, VMware's strategy is to offer an overlay so businesses that find themselves using hybrid multi-cloud can link those resources with virtual networks and apply consistent security policies instead of having to treat each of their clouds as a silo.

That approach competes with hyperscalers by giving VMware customers the chance to adopt multi-cloud with (theoretically) less complexity and pain, rather than feeling they might need to commit to fewer clouds for the sake of simplicity. But it also complements hyperscalers, who know that hybrid multi-cloud has happened – mostly by accident, rather than as a result of planning or strategy – and needs to be accommodated before it irritates customers.

VMware also facilitates the creation of large-scale private clouds, and has fostered a 3,000-plus constellation of small public cloud operators that run on the vStack. Both represent competition for hyperscalers.

But just how else a combined VMware and Broadcom could increase competition for hyperscalers is harder to divine. The big clouds have mostly made SaaS at scale their real differentiators.

The Register has sought comment from Broadcom.

The employee newsletter wasn't the only Tuesday filing from VMware and Broadcom. Another linked to an analysis piece that echoed The Register's view that the European Union's probe of the acquisition – on grounds it could reduce competition for hardware – is barking up the wrong tree. VMware's business is based on virtualizing as much hardware as possible, so the EU isn't really making much sense there.

A third filing links to research from analyst firm IDC that tested the statement "My company's overall investment and strategic partnership with the combined Broadcom and VMware will likely grow over the next two years."

Broadcom proudly points out that 83 percent of respondents completely agree, somewhat agree, or are neutral towards that statement.

But on the document's second page, IDC breaks down the numbers to reveal that 48 percent of respondents were neutral – leaving just 35 percent positive about future intentions.

And of course the 17 percent who responded with somewhat or complete disagreement that the Broadcom/VMware combo's significance will increase represents roughly one in six customers.

That's a lot of negative sentiment. But IDC suggests if you're among the disagreeable 17 percent or the neutral 48 percent, you have leverage.

"Broadcom will gain thousands of small and medium-sized businesses with this acquisition, which diversifies their revenue and reduces risks," the analyst firm wrote. "They are likely to go the extra mile to retain this market. These customers should be in an ideal spot to have their voices heard."

IDC's advice to customers included a suggestion not to assume Broadcom will use the same unpleasant tactics it employed when acquiring Symantec and CA. However it also advised that customers "should ask tough questions and engage Broadcom and VMware management about their concerns, including plans for VMware products and pricing models."

A couple of questions about how VMware will challenge hyperscalers might also be handy. ®

Solutions aggregator TD Synnex is introducing the ability for WMware partners to offer customers exclusive, free security self-assessments as a way of seeding new business potential. 

Worth a total of $27,000 (£22,328), partners will now be able to provide three high-level self-assessments that cover ransomware, cyber security, and vSphere+.

These unique surveys are the brainchild of specialist consultancy CapametriX, a company that VMware has been working alongside for some time, and have been designed to help open new dialogues, gather critical data, as well as generate insights into clients’ strengths and weaknesses.

Sam Darling, cyber security business manager at TD Synnex’s UK business, said partners can leverage this data to position themselves as a trusted security advisor to their customers.

“They can also take that further and become an authoritative source of intelligence and insight in the vertical market segments in which they focus by aggregating of all of their clients’ completed self-assessments and then benchmarking the position of their customers in specific areas,” he explained.

“They could, for example, demonstrate to a client in financial services that their stance on multi-factor authentication, identity protection, or some other facet of security, is not as strong as the one being taken by their peers.”

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The assessments have been built on current industry standards and best practices, with the cyber security-orientated option modelled on the NIST standards for the protection of critical infrastructure.

TD Synnex said these frameworks will enable organisations to quickly assess core cyber security capabilities, confirm their strengths, as well as identify potential knowledge gaps and weaknesses.  

Upon completion, the surveys will generate a recommended action plan that can be used to mitigate risk and help Improve performance.

Despite these new self-assessments being focused on specific areas, the aggregator said there will also be opportunities to “cross-pollinate” and extend the dialogue on other areas of IT.

“We have already been working with a limited number of partners to take the self-assessments out and our experience shows that, in addition to the survey area covered, discussions soon open up on other aspects of cyber security, virtualisation and management,” Darling added. “The conversion rate has been high.”

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VMware advises users with VMware ESXi servers to perform updates as soon as possible to counter the accurate ESXiArgs ransomware and disable the OpenSLP service. In addition, it is confirmed that the attack is not a zero-day vulnerability.

VMware states in a response that the attack does not involve a zero-day vulnerability. In the statement, VMare indicates that it involves so-called End of General Support (EOGS) and or obsolete products with vulnerabilities already addressed.

More concretely, researchers already discovered, it specifically concerns VMware ESXi versions 7.x for build ESXi70U1c-17325551, ESXi versions 6.7.x for build ESXi670-202102401-SG and ESXi versions 6.5.x for build ESXi650-202102101-SG. Especially targeted are ESXi hypervisor versions 6.x to 6.7.

Advice to upgrade and disable OpenSPL

According to the virtualization and cloud specialist, patches and so-called VMware Security Advisories (VMSAs) have been available for the vulnerabilities of these specific versions for some time. VMware, therefore, urges users to update to the latest versions of VMware ESXi and/or VMware vSphere components as soon as possible.

It also urges users to disable the OpenSPL service. VMware ESXi versions ESXi 7.0 U2c and ESXi 8.0 GA released in 2021 already have this service disabled by default.

Global ransomware attack

Yesterday it was announced that since Feb. 3, thousands of VMware ESXi servers worldwide, mainly in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, have been attacked by the new ransomware variant ESXiArgs. The ransomware gains access to servers running the outdated and unpatched software via a so-called “heap overflow” in the standard upcoming Open SLP service. Very notable in the attack that the so-called Sosemanuk algorithm, among others, was used.

Tip: Global ransomware attack on thousands of VMware ESXi servers

January 25, 2023, 04:00 PM EST

By exploiting the vulnerabilities in VMware’s vRealize Log Insight tool, an attacker could seize control of an impacted system, the U.S. cybersecurity agency said Wednesday.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is urging the deployment of patches for vulnerabilities affecting a VMware log management and analytics tool, including two vulnerabilities that have received a “critical” severity rating from VMware.

The two critical vulnerabilities affecting VMware’s vRealize Log Insight tool could be leveraged to enable remote execution of code on a system by an unauthenticated user, the company said. In other words, “a remote attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system,” CISA said in its advisory Wednesday.

“CISA encourages users and administrators to review VMware Security Advisory VMSA-2023-0001 and apply the necessary updates,” the agency said.

[Related: Microsoft Seeing Exploits Of Windows Zero Day Vulnerability]

While both VMware and CISA are referring to the affected tool as vRealize Log Insight in their advisories, presumably because that is the more-recognizable name, the tool has actually been renamed and is official now known as VMware Aria Operations for Logs, according to VMware’s website.

The two VMware vulnerabilities that could enable remote code execution are:

• A “directory traversal” vulnerability (tracked at CVE-2022-31706), through which “an unauthenticated, malicious actor can inject files into the operating system of an impacted appliance which can result in remote code execution,” VMware said. The vulnerability has been given a “critical” severity rating with a score of 9.8 out of 10.0.
• A broken access control vulnerability (tracked at CVE-2022-31704), with which “an unauthenticated, malicious actor can inject files into the operating system of an impacted appliance which can result in remote code execution,” VMware said. The vulnerability has also been given a “critical” severity rating with a score of 9.8 out of 10.0.

The two other vRealize Log Insight vulnerabilities disclosed this week by VMware include a deserialization vulnerability (with a severity score of 7.5, considered to be of “important” severity) and an information disclosure vulnerability (with a severity score of 5.3, considered to be of “moderate” severity).

When it comes to the ongoing issue of needing to address vulnerabilities in software, the key for organizations is to get a handle on what the actual business impact will be from any given vulnerability — and then prioritize accordingly, according to Brad Davenport, vice president of technical architecture for cybersecurity, networking and collaboration at Logicalis US, No. 66 on the 2023 CRN Solution Provider 500.

“With so many different solutions in your infrastructure, with so many different software suites, you can’t possibly be expected to be 100 percent patched all of the time,” Davenport told CRN. “It’s a constant prioritization game to determine what ultimately is the business impact, and then to really prioritize those things.”

Being able to prioritize in that way, however, is an area that many businesses struggle with. Many businesses “have not yet reached that level of maturity, where they understand what the actual business impact of vulnerabilities are,” he said.

That’s prompted many organizations to seek out advisory services for these types of scenarios from providers that offer them such as Logicalis US, Davenport said.

“What we’ve tried to do is push that conversation further outside of the IT decision makers, and talk more generally with the business leaders and business owner about risks” from issues such as software vulnerabilities, he said.

February 03, 2023, 01:07 PM EST

‘I truly believe this is the age of the partner. Look at edge, look at AI, look at all of the trends that we‘re seeing throughout the IT industry. There’s just so much opportunity, where do you focus? The way to do it is by partnering together,’ says VMware head of worldwide partner and commercial organization Ricky Cooper.

VMware’s head of worldwide partner and commercial organization, Ricky Cooper, is on a mission to recruit the best partners around the globe: resellers, systems integrators and distributors who can understand and solve the complex technical problems that drive progress.

“The only way we are going to succeed is to have partners on board who understand our technology, and can deploy our technology,” Cooper told CRN.

With the coming launch of Partner Connect 2.0 Cooper said VMware will reward partners who have invested in reaching technical designations such as solution competencies, master services competencies, validated services offerings, and who are cloud verified. Partners with those abilities will earn more points towards tier progression.

[RELATED: Life After Dell: VMware Exec Heaps Praise On HPE, Lenovo, Teases Tie-Ups With NEC, Fujitsu, Hitatchi]

“I keep referring to the fact that this is the age of the partner,” Cooper said. “And I truly believe this is the age of the partner … Look at edge, look at AI, look at all of the trends that we’re seeing throughout the IT industry. There’s just so much opportunity, where do you focus? The way to do it is by partnering together.”

But it can’t be a one-way street, Cooper said, with only the partner investing in their employees and VMware’s success. He said rewarding technically mature partners with tier progression is the first step. The second is passing along work for those partners.

“One we’ll reward and two we will also make a huge effort to ensure that we’re passing as many services opportunities as we can to our partner ecosystem, and you’ll see a huge change,” he said. “There was a tendency before, when the pie is a bit smaller, and you’ve got large ELAs, we were taking on a lot of that services. work ourselves. Things are really opening up... how does a partner ensure they have got increased profitability? By becoming an expert in our technology, and being a valued services partner, and taking on some of these services.”

VMware is on a path to forging more strategic relationships with a smaller set of partners through the new Pinnacle Tier of its Partner Connect Program, Cooper said. It will dedicate a worldwide leader to the Pinnacle Tier to centralize VMware’s Pinnacle Programs and form a community for its largest resellers. He said Pinnacle Partners will have a much tighter level of engagement such as executive sponsorship, managed account coverage, and joint business plan development.

Pinnacle Partners will also have access to a Big Bet program which drive jointly aligned goals with targeted outcomes and is separate to the Partner Connect program and incentives.

“We will invest resources, marketing dollars, Test Labs, etc. in the Big Bets program,” he said. We can’t share with you at this time which partners make up the Pinnacle Tier, but we can tell you the list will include major reseller partners, amongst other partner types.”

The company is in the midst of a $61 billion takeover by chipmaker giant Broadcom. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan singled out the need to move more VMware customers into subscription licenses as well as Broadcom’s embrace of VMware’s partner ecosystem in his first comments on the proposed deal back in May.

Here’s more of what Cooper had to say.

Cybercriminals are actively exploiting a two-year-old VMware vulnerability as part of a ransomware campaign targeting thousands of organizations worldwide.

Reports emerged over the weekend that VMware ESXi servers left vulnerable and unpatched against a remotely exploitable bug from 2021 were compromised and scrambled by a ransomware variant dubbed “ESXiArgs.” ESXi is VMware’s hypervisor, a technology that allows organizations to host several virtualized computers running multiple operating systems on a single physical server.

France’s computer emergency response team CERT-FR reports that the cybercriminals have been targeting VMware ESXi servers since February 3, while Italy’s national cybersecurity agency ACN on Sunday warned of a large-scale ransomware campaign targeting thousands of servers across Europe and North America.

U.S. cybersecurity officials have also confirmed they are investigating the ESXiArgs campaign. “CISA is working with our public and private sector partners to assess the impacts of these reported incidents and providing assistance where needed,” a CISA spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Any organization experiencing a cybersecurity incident should immediately report it to CISA or the FBI.”

Italian cybersecurity officials warned that the ESXi flaw could be exploited by unauthenticated threat actors in low-complexity attacks, which don’t rely on using employee passwords or secrets, according to the Italian ANSA news agency. The ransomware campaign is already causing “significant” damage due to the number of unpatched machines, local press reported.

More than 3,200 VMware servers worldwide have been compromised by the ESXiArgs ransomware campaign so far, according to a Censys search (via Bleeping Computer). France is the most affected country, followed by the U.S., Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom.

It’s not clear who is behind the ransomware campaign. French cloud computing provider OVHCloud backtracked on its initial findings suggesting a link to the Nevada ransomware variant.

A copy of the alleged ransom note, shared by threat intelligence provider DarkFeed, shows that the hackers behind the attack have adopted a “triple-extortion” technique, in which the attackers threaten to notify victims’ customers of the data breach. The unknown attackers are demanding 2.06 bitcoin — approximately $19,000 in ransom payments — with each note displaying a different bitcoin wallet address.

In a statement given to TechCrunch, VMware spokesperson Doreen Ruyak said the company was aware of reports that a ransomware variant dubbed ESXiArgs “appears to be leveraging the vulnerability identified as CVE-2021-21974” and said that patches for the vulnerability “were made available to customers two years ago in VMware’s security advisory of February 23, 2021.”

“Security hygiene is a key component of preventing ransomware attacks, and organizations who are running versions of ESXi impacted by CVE-2021-21974, and have not yet applied the patch, should take action as directed in the advisory,” the spokesperson added.

Updated with comment from CISA.